5 Great Stadiums Making Up for Bad Baseball Teams

PORTLAND, Ore. (TheStreet) -- There's still a lot of baseball to be played, and we're not even at the All-Star Break, but some major league fans know when they're in for an especially long season.

Maybe the team has already spent the past few months under .500. Maybe half the lineup's hurt. Maybe the team's doing really well, but fans have seen enough late-season swoons in their time to know just what they're dealing with.

For fans of teams mired in the middle of the standings or somewhere just below, this is just about the time you wonder what your motivation is going to be to get out to the ballpark this year. There's the argument that baseball is a beautiful game and that there's nothing quite like watching it played at the highest level, but that's a tough argument to make when nothing your team has done lately has earned that "highest level" distinction.

Then there's the not-so-small matter of the cost. The average ticket jumped 1.8% from last season, according to Team Marketing Report. The average cost of bringing a family of four to the game and paying for parking, concessions and souvenirs rose 0.6%, to $207.80.

Those costs are still a fraction of what fans pay to see a National Football League, National Hockey League or National Basketball League game. In fact, that price for a full day at the ballgame for a family of four wouldn't even get them in the door at an NHL game (where tickets average $61.01 a pop) or an NFL matchup ($78.38). Baseball's still a steal and, on average, a beautiful day at the ballpark watching a terrible team isn't so bad.

We took a look around the league and found five stadiums whose aesthetics and amenities give fans more reason to come to the ballpark than the team inhabiting it: